A Duet, with an Occasional Chorus by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (ebook reader web .TXT) 📕

passing pageant, the black gloom, which swallows up the never-ending stream of life. Will the spirit wear better than the body; and if not, what infernal practical joke is this to which we are subjected!

'It will. It must,' he said.

'WHY, Frank--Frank dear, what is the matter? You are quite pale.'

'Come out into the air, Maude. I have had enough of this stuffy old church.'

'Stuffy!' said the clerk. 'Well, we've 'ad the Lord Mayor 'ere at least once a year, an' 'e never found it stuffy. A cleaner, fresher church you won't find in the city of London. It's 'ad its day, I'll allow. There was a time--and I can remember it--when folk used to spend their money where they made it, and the plate would be full of paper and gold, where now we find it 'ard enough to get coppers. That was fifty year ago, when I was a young clerk. You might not think it, but I've seen a Lord Mayor, a past Lord Mayor, and a Lord Mayor elect of the city of London, all sitting on one bench in this very church. And YOU call it stuffy!'

Frank soothed the wounded feelings of the old clerk, and explained that by stuffy he meant interesting. He also shook hands with him in a peculiar way as he held his palm upturned in the small of his back. Then Maude and he retraced their steps up the narrow street which is called Seething Lane.

'Poor old boy! What was it, then?' asked Maude, looking up with her sympathetic eyes. It is at such moments that a man realises what the companionship of women means. The clouds melted before the sun.

'What an ass I was! I began to think of all sorts of horrible things. Never mind, Maude! We are out for a holiday. Hang the future! Let us live in the present.'

'I always do,' said Maude, and she spoke for her sex.

'Well, what now? Buttered toast or suede gloves?'

'Business first!' said Maude primly, and so proceeded to save her sixpence on the gloves. As she was tempted, however ('such a civil obliging shopman, Frank!'), to buy four yards of so-called Astrakhan trimming, a frill of torchon lace, six dear little festooned handkerchiefs, and four pairs of open-work stockings--none of which were contemplated when she entered the shop--her sixpenny saving was not as brilliant a piece of finance as she imagined.

And then they finished their excursion in the dark, wainscotted, low- ceilinged coffee-room of an old-fashioned inn, once the mother of many coaches, and now barren and deserted, but with a strange cunning in the matter of buttered toast which had come down from more prosperous days. It was a new waiter who served them, and he imagined them to be lovers and scented an intrigue; but when they called for a second plate of toast and a jug of boiling water, he recognised the healthy appetite of the married. And then, instead of going home like a good little couple, Maude suddenly got it into her head that it would cheer away the last traces of Frank's gloom if they went to see 'Charley's Aunt' at the Globe. So they loitered and shopped for a couple of hours, and then squeezed into the back of the pit; and wedged in among honest, hearty folk who were not ashamed to show their emotions, they laughed until they were tired. And so home, as their friend Pepys would have said, after such a day as comes into the memory, shining golden among the drab, when old folk look back, and think of the dear dead past. May you and I, reader, if ever we also come to sit in our final armchairs in the chimney corners, have many such to which our minds may turn, sweet and innocent and fragrant, to cheer us in those darksome hours to come.


CHAPTER XIV--TROUBLE


One evening Frank came home with a clouded face. His wife said nothing, but after dinner she sat on a footstool beside his chair and waited. She knew that if it were for the best, he would tell her everything, and she had confidence enough in his judgment to acquiesce in his silence if he thought it best to be silent. As a matter of fact, it was just this telling her which made his trouble hard to bear. And yet he thought it wiser to tell.

'I've had something to worry me, dear.'

'Poor old boy, I know you have. What was it?'

'Why should I bother you with it?'

'A nice wife I should be, if I shared all your joys and none of your sorrows! Anyhow, I had rather share sorrow with you than joy within any one else.' She snuggled her head up against his knee. 'Tell me about it, Frank.'

'You remember my telling you just before our marriage that I was surety for a man?'

'I remember perfectly well.'

'His name was Farintosh. He was an insurance-agent, and I became surety for him in order to save his situation.'

'Yes, dear, it was so noble of you.'

'Well, Maude, he was on the platform this morning, and when he saw me, he turned on his heel and hurried out of the station. I read guilt in his eyes. I am sure that his accounts are wrong again.'

'Oh, what an ungrateful wretch!'

'Poor devil, I dare say he has had a bad time. But I was a fool not to draw out of that. It was all very well when I was a bachelor. But here I am as a married man faced with an indefinite liability and nothing to meet it with. I don't know what is to become of us, Maude.'

'How much is it, dearest?'

'I don't know. That is the worst of it.'

'But surely your own office would not be so hard upon you?'

'It is not my own office. It is another office--the Hotspur.'

'Oh dear! What have you done about it, Frank?'

'I called at their office in my lunch-hour, and I requested them to send down an accountant to examine Farintosh's books. He will be here to-morrow morning, and I have leave of absence for the day.'

And so they were to spend an evening and a night without knowing whether they were merely crippled or absolutely ruined. Frank's nature was really a very proud one, and the thought of failing in his engagements wounded his self-respect most deeply. His nerves winced and quivered before it. But her sweet, strong soul rose high above all fear, and bore him up with her, into the serenity of love and trust and confidence. The really precious things, the things of the spirit, were permanent, and could not be lost. What matter if they lived in an eight-roomed villa, or in a tent out on the heath? What matter if they had two servants, or if she worked for him herself? All this was the merest trifle, the outside of life. But the intimate things, their love, their trust, their pleasures of mind and soul, these could not be taken away from them while they had life to enjoy them. And so she soothed Frank with sweet caresses and gentle words, until this night of gloom had turned to the most beautiful of all his life, and he had learned to bless the misfortune which had taught him to know the serene courage and the wholehearted devotion which can only be felt, like the scent of a fragrant leaf, when Fate gives us a crush between its iron fingers.

Shortly after breakfast Mr. Wingfield, the accountant from London, arrived--a tall, gentlemanly man, with a formal manner.

'I'm sorry about this business, Mr. Crosse,' said he.

Frank made a grimace. 'It can't be helped.'

'We will hope that the amount is not very serious. We have warned Mr. Farintosh that his books will be inspected to-day. When you are ready we shall go round.'

The agent lived in a side-street not far off. A brass plate, outside a small brick house, marked it out from the line of other small brick houses. A sad-faced woman opened the door, and Farintosh himself, haggard and white, was seated among his ledgers in the little front room. A glance at the man's helpless face turned all Frank's resentment to pity.

They sat down at the table, the accountant in the centre, Farintosh on the right, and Frank on the left. There was no talk save an occasional abrupt question and answer. For two hours the swish and rustle of the great blue pages of the ledgers were the chief sound, with the scratching of Mr. Wingfield's pen as he totalled up long columns of figures. Frank's heart turned to water as he saw the huge sums which had passed through this man's hands. How much had remained there? His whole future depended upon the answer to that question. How prosaic and undramatic are the moments in which a modern career is made or marred! In this obscure battlefield, the squire no longer receives his accolade in public for his work well done, nor do we see the butcher's cleaver as it hacks off the knightly spurs, but failure and success come strangely and stealthily, determined by trifles, and devoid of dignity. Here was the crisis of Frank's young life, in this mean front room, amongst the almanacs and the account-books.

'Can I rely upon these figures?' asked Wingfield at last.

'You can, sir.'

'In that case I congratulate you, Mr. Crosse. I can only find a deficiency of fifty pounds.'

Only enough to swallow the whole of their little savings, which they had carefully invested! However, it was good news, and Frank shook the proffered hand of the accountant.

'I will stay for another hour to check these figures,' said Wingfield. 'But there is no need to detain you.'

'You will come round and lunch with us?'

'With pleasure.'

'Au revoir, then.' Frank ran all the way home, and burst in upon his wife. 'It is not so very bad, dear--only fifty pounds.' They danced about in their joy like two children.

But Wingfield came to his lunch within a solemn face.

'I am very sorry to disappoint you,' he said, 'but the matter is more serious than I thought. We have entered some sums as unpaid which he has really received, but the receipts for which he has held back. They amount to another hundred pounds.'

Maude felt inclined to cry as she glanced at Frank, and saw his resolute effort to look unconcerned.

'Then it's a hundred and fifty.'

'Certainly not less. I have marked the items down upon this paper for your inspection.'

Frank glanced his practised eyes over the results of the accountant's morning's work.

'You have credited him within a hundred and twenty pounds in the bank, I see.'

'Yes, his bank-book shows a balance of that amount.'

'When was it made out?'

'Last Saturday.'

'He may have drawn it since them.'

'It is certainly possible.'

'We might go round after lunch and make